Farewell Anomaly

[Kevin]

The Star Trek Mux Anomaly has closed its doors for good. And it was a great game. The only Mux I have every partipated in and my only outlet for ST RPG. It Utilized muck of the old LUG lore and rules which made it dear to me. The players and staff took great effort to bring the game alive. The Staff wrote great episodes that had a great arch and that fit with many of the characters. I had found that game trhough this site back in 2001. Perhaps some of you played their too. If so share some of your memories here.

To "S" who created the game and kept it running free of charge for us.

Thank You.

[LUGTrekGM]

I recall playing A Vulcan PC that took me about 2 weeks to get approved, named Sponnek, played for about two weeks, nearly 3 years ago.

I misunderstood the rumors system, I thought it was used for submitting rumors as plots suggestions. I started a rumor about an invasion fleet, and another rumor about some kind of intrigue or spies aboard the station, and pissed off a lot of people.

I recall my PC, LTJG Sponnek being swindled by a Ferengi merchant. I recall Sponnek (nicknamed "The Spoon") had a penchant for vanilla ice cream, and would sing orion drinking songs in the bar on the main deck. I recall once he got drunk, and was escorted to his quarters by one of the helm ensigns.

He ended up dying on week two of some kind of brain virus, and written out of the station, for the good of the community.

I had many good convos with Fleety about the game. I recall meeting Balin, and thinking how cool a character he was, kind of like Kevin Costner, in uniform.

I really didn't like the XO, Edwards, I think his name was. Seems like Fleety (or others) played a half dozen NPCs, altogether.

There were some other cool characters, Turtledove (whom I really liked), and the hot for each other Andorians, whom more or less kept to themselves, except for the guy that carried the chaka.

I really did enjoy my time there, but it was also kind of a strange experience, in that I never knew who was who, and as I said, suspected Fleety or the other admins played multiple PCs so I felt like I couldn't be really open to any one specific person.

But the characters were great, and most of the players were really great.

I recall enjoying most of the plots that I was involved in, except I couldn't stand Tyler. At All.

I also was so inspired, though by the experience, especially since I was well versed in LUG already, since I had run 4 campaigns of it already, I applied to Nails for web server space to start my own game.

In the end, after Sponnek was written out, I ended up running a neverwinter nights server with another hosting service, for a few years, because pennmush code was a bit too much for me.

I had another PC, LTJG Libra Lee Morrison, the Station Computer Sciences Officer, who was more or less forced to take a reprimand by Edwards for trying to shut down a rogue AI program that timefleet (AKA LT / Admiral of the Future Tyler) wanted, in Episode: Ghost of Madalena, Oct, 2002.

The XO pretty much forced me to get a black mark in the PC's record, even though the pc requested a court martial to clear their name of all charges, which were more or less brought by LT. Tyler, as I recall.

I think it would have been interesting, and I was helping to write a court martial scenario, with info about court martials, and such, but it was decided, no we don't want to go there, by the powers that be.

Again, it seemed my PC was not a good fit.

Funny conicidence, I was looking through my lug files on my hard drive the other day, and found some of those scenes, that I had saved. I realized that I hated Edwards, SQUARED.

I met and talked to S. John Ross (LUG Andorian book author) there, a really nice guy, and ended up emailing him a few times to ask some LUG rulees questions (since LUG, as a company was gone) which he promptly answered.

The space battles were just the best gaming experiences I have possibly ever had.

Some of the one to one chats were really enjoyable, with different people.

I used a very similar style for the combat and interation when I was doing my own live LUG Trek OpenRPG chat games, and so it was just a really cool experience.

At Anomaly, I wish that there was not so much filtering / rechecking on the pc generation, that was sometimes a real chore, for stuff I never got to use. It seemed like different mods wanted different things, so it was a bit of a hassle.

Of course, my pcs were never there long enough to get onto the crew bio pages. C'est la vie.

Overall, it was the best MUX / MUSH I have ever played, out of perhaps 2 dozen.

If I ever ran a mux it would be like that, but on a ship. The work was put into it, and it showed.

But I pretty much like a small group, so I play OpenRPG LUG Trek.

To all those from Anomaly, Fair winds, and following Seas. You were a great crew, even though neither of my PCs lasted very long.

[Anomaly]

Thanks for the nice words, Kevin.

Sponnek! Now there's a blast from the past. I remember a scene between him and Balin where Sponnek was talking about golf on the moon. That was quite funny.

In terms of 'time to approval', we had a very stringent application process for a reason. It was to weed out twinks. Anomaly took a certain amount of literary acumen. It was catered toward quality and not quantity. I'd rather have one person logged in who could type a complete sentence than have 10 AOL-sp33k retards whose idea of a good pose is:

AOLBob says, "d00d i want 2 go sh00t changlings111"

The application process makes those types of people flee. Besides, I spent years working on Anomaly. What's two weeks in the face of what I went through? It looks puny and angers us! Prepare your world for destruction!

Staff did indeed play multiple NPCS, and it was required of staff to place in that character's '+finger' info that it was an NPC and not a PC. So you could always ID if it was a player or a staff member. Nobody was trying to sneak one up on you. Players could, within reason, play multiple characters. I personally played Balin, Tyler, Sinclaire (very rare appearances), Minos (occasional appearances), and a Pakled named Boptnelus (super rare appearances). I played a few other plot-oriented NPCs, but those rarely recurred.

Courts martials are tricky. In my experience in MU*ing, courtroom scenes create major problems on those types of games. In 99 percent of those types of plots, it ends up generating out of character hard feelings and creates a big fight. As such, it was decided very early on that all courts martial type of scenes would be handled off-station and therefore off-camera. It preserves everyone's sanity.

It is regrettable that I was forced to close the game, but my real life takes precedence uber alles. As long as Anomaly is 'out there', I feel a certain obligation to make sure it is run right. If it is closed, I do not feel this impetus, and can get other things done.

I'm glad that I was able to provide folks with some diversion, and hopefully some fond memories.

As a side note, Daedalus and Grey are making their own Trek game using some of Anomaly's code. So 'good MU* Trek' might not yet be completely dead.

[Don Mappin]

It is regrettable that I was forced to close the game, but my real life takes precedence uber alles. As long as Anomaly is 'out there', I feel a certain obligation to make sure it is run right. If it is closed, I do not feel this impetus, and can get other things done.

I know exactly how you feel.

[LUGTrekGM]

Hey Fleety!

As I said, the best MUX out there. I do miss it.

Good luck.

[Mac417]

Wow, end of an era, this.

I spent about half a decade of Anomaly's existence as the roguishly handsome (heh) Bajoran security chief of Station 419, and I can honestly say it was the singly best RP experience I've had in a long while. I decided to make my permanent exit roughly a month before the closing was announced, due to real-life concerns and assorted other things, but hearing of this was still a bit of a shock.

Kevin, thanks for running things so well over there. While I leave Lt. Commander Dakin Rann behind for good and well, I still have my memories. And it'll take more than a volley of quantum torpedoes to make those go away.

Even if it was Dakin who fired 'em.

Thanks again, man. I'm findable on Marvel United MUX these days, playing a certain Armored Avenger.

[Kevin]

Yes Anomaly/Fleety/S/Balin etc... Thanks for running things well over there. As I said I just merely enjoyed playing there. I played the antisocial Romulan Liaison officer for a while. I played off and on as RL came in and out of importance. I took a real long break when I was sent to afganistan. Tried even to play from there. but the contection wasn't great. I had much fun and meet some really great folks there. But alas with its end so too was my last ties to Star Trek.

[Uruz]

AnomalyMUX was *the* best Trek experience I've ever had outside of the many series and movies. I have many fond memories of that place, and over the years of my absence I have poked my head in at the website to see what was going on.

I would still be there today if it was not for my disagreements with Fleety's causing us to be like oil and water. Oh well.

Salut, and fair sailing, Anomaly cast and crew.

-player of Kallan, VuQ'cheH, Dosa, and Ashilav

edit: had to get my simile right. whoops